Sparknotes!

Today, my article titled "What Your Favorite Candy Says About You" was published on a site called Sparknotes.com! :D Sparknotes is a popular website designed for teens (I think it is run by Barnes and Noble). It has lots of guides, called Sparknotes, that help teens like me understand classic books, like To Kill a Mockingbird, or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. There's even an entire section devoted to Shakespeare's works. Generally, each section or chapter is explained an summarized in a way that is easy to understand (that way, you won't fail your Literature class). 

I first discovered Sparknotes while trying to find help for a book I was reading last year, titled Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Sparknotes really helped me understand what was going on, since most of the book was written in old, Scottish dialect that was very difficult for me to understand (I think my grade for that term wouldn't have been great without Sparknotes!). Then, I found the Sparklife community. 

Every weekday, on Sparklife, around 8 to 14 new articles are posted. Some of these are written by people who actually work at Sparknotes, such as Auntie Sparknotes and her awesome advice column, Dan Bergstein and his hilarious series on Blogging Twilight, and Miss Marm and her writing advice. Others are written by contributors, and the posts can be themed around a certain event, such as the holiday season, which brings up: What to Buy your Frenemy for Christmas, or How to Handle Awkward Questions at Family Gatherings. Others are much more random, such as 10 Reasons Why I Hate Tomato Soup, or How to Survive Picture Day. 

Back at the end of October, I had the idea of writing an article, about what your favorite candy says about you. There had been other posts based on the same idea, but instead using pen colors, nail polish colors, font types, soda, and even punctuation marks. It was Halloween, so why not candy? 

First, I searched on Sparklife for any previous articles with the same idea (how embarrassing would it be to send in an article that had already been published?!). Luckily, nobody had written about it yet, and since it was Halloween, it was the perfect time to write it. I started writing without any guidance, not even an outline (bad, I know!) and within a day, I had my article. I edited for grammatical errors and such, but I didn't want it to seem too polished. The fun of reading Sparklife is that nothing is perfect, it's all very personal, casual and hilarious with a side of genius. 

Without any second thoughts, I emailed my article along with my username to the Sparklife editors. It was about 3 weeks before I heard back, and by then, I had nearly forgotten about it. The email was short, and simple, basically telling me that they had accepted my article, and that it was going up the week of November 29, 2010. 

I was so shocked, I really hadn't even expected an answer, since many people submit articles (I actually jumped around and fist pumped the air when I found out!). Yesterday, after eagerly waiting all week, my post went up (just click here!)!! :D I'm so honored to have had my article put up, along with the epic writing talents that go up everyday! 

Until next time,

<3 Lucero